Google’s had an easy time giving away Chromebooks. Selling them, however, is another matter. Neither Acer nor Samsung has seen much interest in their first Chromebook models, and recently that led to some much-needed price cuts. Even with the reduction, Samsung has still handed out far more Series 5 Chromebooks than it has sold.

Apart from troubles finding a price point that consumers find attractive for a browser-only laptop, there’s a perception problem with Chromebooks. A quote from the Palo Alto Library’s Jessica Goodman sums things up nicely. During an in-house lending trial where patrons could take Chromebooks for a spin inside the library’s walls, she received feedback like “That was pretty cool. I wish I could do word processing with that.”

You can, of course, do word processing — with web apps like Google Docs, Zoho, or the Office Web suite. But for the vast majority of consumers, they’re still expecting to see some core apps pre-installed and ready to rock on a laptop when they handle it.

So Google and the Library have decided to expand on the original Chromebook program. Patrons will now be able to check out a Chromebook and use it for a full week wherever they like.

If any laptop is suited to this kind of use, it’s a Chromebook. Since all your data is stored in Google’s cloud (apart from anything you cram into the pint-sized SSD), it doesn’t matter if you can’t check out the exact same Chromebook two weeks down the road. Sign in with your Google ID, and all your settings are pulled down onto the new machine.

Of course, whether or not the program helps spur sales remains to be seen. Maybe if it won’t convince consumer it’ll convince additional libraries and other tech-lending outlets that Chromebooks are worth a gander.